Friday, 7 November 2014

Edward Scissorhands review

Edward Scissorhands review

A man full of child-like wonder.

The movie starts off with an elderly women telling her
grand-daughter a bedtime story about when her mother found a mysterious man
called Edward with scissors for hands and in pity and takes him into her house
to look after him. There Edward finds new objects and discovers people that
would greet him with open arms. The man with scissors for hands enjoys a
barbecue with the neighbours. Talking, learning, listening until it was all
over and he fell asleep on a water bed, which happened to belong to the
daughter, Kim, who returns home early than the family expected and enters her
bedroom where Edward was sleeping. She screamed to alarm the family that there
was an intruder in the house only to be explained that it was a kind and gentle
man that lived inside the dark castle nearby. The next morning Edward
discovered a talent that he can cut bushes to make them look like animals and
objects. Everyone was impressed and later asked him to cut the dogs fur which
made the pet look fashionable, at that point one of them asked to cut their
hair. He agrees and done just that which caused everyone to have one done from
him too. Edward became a celebrity with everyone generating a fad of his style
of haircuts. Days later and Kim and her boyfriend asks him to break into a
house, there he was caught and taken to jail only to be freed and taken home.
Christmas is coming and everyone was getting ready with decorations, even
Edward was preparing for the holiday by cutting a giant ice block when he
accentually cut Kim's hand. He jealous boyfriend got angry and continues to
push and threaten Edward. As a response to control his anger he goes off on a
rampage, cutting and stabbing anything in his way causing a fuss. The furious
boyfriend decided to hunt down Edward only to follow him to the dark castle
where the battle goes underway. Kim join them and gets smacked, which caused
Edward to get even angrier that he stabbed the boyfriend and decides to hide in
the castle where he will bother no one and so the story ends with Kim being an
old women that was telling the story.

The film mainly focus on Edward discovering new things and
that is what gives it is charm, it’s almost like watching a child that’s
learning new things. The audience would know what to do with these things or
situations because it’s what we do in our everyday lives but seeing Edward
learning these new things really makes you think on how you do stuff. The film
does brilliantly on talking about disability by having Edward (Looking like a
grown man) undergo difficulties in the most simplest of tasks by having
scissors as hands, which makes the audience feels a strong sense of pity for
him. We want to help him but we can’t plus would they want us help them?
Everyone has this great sense of pride so it is difficult to tell if they want
us to help them or not. Like picking up a glass for them to drink, putting on
clothes etc however this movie also tells us how to help them. For example:
when Edward was picking up a glass he was struggling to succeed so the father
gave him a straw so it was possible for Edward to drink. He gave the right
amount of help not too much that it makes Edward feel like a child but not too
little so you’ll have to deal with watching him suffer. The actors are
amazingly talented in portraying the characters like Johnny Depp as Edward. Despite
only having a few lines he has to focus on expressing his facial expressions,
which can be difficult as he has to act like everything is new and not to get
over excited otherwise people will get hurt.

The story, pacing and the main character are perfect to a
point that it’s difficult to find any bad points without being nit-picking (Like
where did Edward get the giant ice cubes when he is meant to be hiding from everyone at the end of the movie?) There is some
points that looks “fake”. For example: The cutting the hair moments, it obvious
that all he is doing to fiddling with the hair while bits of fluff is spraying
everywhere but that’s what gives it its charm and excitement. The main flaw is that there is less screen
time between Edward and Kim but because of that it gives off this Disney
feeling that we all just have to except.

Overall this film gets a 9.2/10. A fantastic film that you cannot
live without and highly recommended. It’s both whimsical yet dark, joyful yet
sad, beautiful yet ugly, basically a perfect balance between light and dark.
The film does brilliantly with everything it does, majestic settings, beautiful
soundtrack and romantic story. This film has it all and I doubt that anyone
would dislike this marvellous film. Edward
brings back what we all forgotten… the joys of life and child-like wonder.

2 comments:

A very good well though-out review. One thing that I would say is that no real review gives much description of what happens other then the characters, settings and main story line. You have explained the whole story in detail. Imagine being someone reading this review before watching it. You would already know what will happen to all the main characters. If you can avoid explaining the plot in so much detail that would improve your reviews. Give a short summary of the plot, not explain everything.

Hi Jacky, Yes, again I agree with Dan... you don't need the whole plotline in your review, just a short synopsis will do. You should spend more time focussing on the film craft, the influences, the use of colour and sound - all these sort of things. You have still not used any quotes to support your discussion - the minimum you need is three. Once you start looking at what other people have written about these films, you will find it easier to broaden and deepen your analysis. Have a look at some of your classmates reviews, to see how they should be written - Mark Stamp's are particularly good examples.